Soldiers of Fate
by Cinerari
Summary: Welcome to the game, Harlock. It's recommended that you play to win, all of you. The price for losing is far more than just your life, so kill your doubles.
1. Convergence of the Twain

**Well, uh... I've been planning this fic for a long time, so cross your fingers with me, and we'll see if I'm able to write it as well as I hope to. The plot is a little cliche, I know, but I thought it would be so much fun to do it this way. I also recommend everyone go ahead and place their bets on who they think the victor will be. It would be fun to hear some guesses.  
**

**Thanks for reading, and I hope you like it. Sorry if I missed any mistakes.**

* * *

Being a god was dreadfully boring. Watching over the threads of space and time was redundant after, well, an eternity of it. Luckily, humans were interesting. I especially liked their wars. I liked to watch them tear each other apart over small matters, set off devastating explosions, and throw the blame around until it was hard to tell why the whole thing had started in the first place. War was simply thrilling.

But even that became boring. It made me wonder why I should have to watch from a distance. I was a god, after all, even if I'd never been properly worshiped. With my strength I could destroy everything with the pluck of a single stand of the threads that held the infinite number of universes together. That would make things even more boring though.

It made more sense to bring myself some entertainment.

The idea came about when I noticed one figure in-particular. In some threads he was quite the legend, in others not but a whisper. It was unheard of to have so many universes where one man, different yet the same in each, could be connected to so many threads, so many fates. If he hadn't been a mortal, he could have been a god.

He was always so powerful, such a force to watch, yet he still had the space in his heart to care for his planet or friends or simply the fate of everything. Yes, this was the entertainment I needed. I only had to decide how many I wanted, and which ones.

I spread my gaze out across the endless expanse of the threads, choosing the ones I particularly liked, ones that were just different enough but mostly the same, just like him. Of course, just him on his own wasn't enough of a motivation, so I picked an another from each thread as well. It would certainly tilt the balance of the game for a more entertaining run.

Finally, one-by-one I ripped them all from their worlds and tossed them into my limbo. Each one slept like a lifeless doll until I snapped my fingers, bringing them all to life. Perhaps I should have planned their meeting better, though it did bring a smile to my face to wonder how they would all tell each other apart.

* * *

Without looking, I knew Daiba's hands were trembling, ruining his aim. I knew he was trying to hide his fear, but his eyes were darting to every Mazone surrounding us. He took a retreating step to put his back closer to mine.

Yes, there was a chance we wouldn't make it out alive. There was always a chance of that. The idea didn't scare me, because I simply didn't have time to die at that moment. I had more important things to do. I would die later, when the opportunity was better. The only trouble was whether or not Daiba could manage to keep himself alive alongside me. Even with my help, he would need to be a quick shot.

"Gonna sing for me again?" he stuttered through a weak laugh.

I had to smile.

As the uniformed Mazone readied their guns, I felt his back against mine, and I could feel him shaking. Before I could tell him not to show his fear, I heard him give a short gasp. The weight of his back disappeared. I spun, shooting out a hand to catch him before he could fall. My thoughts raced as I tried to understand what had happened. They hadn't shot him. I would have heard it.

Then my eye opened. It was strange, because it hadn't been closed before. I knew it hadn't, and yet I opened it to see my hand still outstretched. I wasn't on the ship where I'd been before. Instead, the greenery around me looked as though it could only be from earth. There were mountains on the horizon and an endless field of flowers beneath my feet. Irritably, I thought I was dead for a brief moment.

"Captain," Daiba hissed, his hand suddenly tugging harshly on my arm. "What the fuck is going on? When did you change pants?"

It was certainly Daiba's voice, but he somehow sounded even angrier than usual. I glanced down to confirm that I was still wearing the same pants before I turned toward him. "What?" I frowned as I took in his appearance. "Are you sure you're not the one who changed clothes?"

It was much like his old outfit, but the pink coloring of the jacket and pants had been replaced by a deep tan, and his hair was a darker shade of blond. It felt like someone was attempting to pass as my crewman who most certainly wasn't him.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded. "Where the hell are we? This had better not be another goddamn Noo trick. I can't deal with this right now!" With an enraged yell, he kicked at one of the flowers underfoot. "Fuck this! Take me back right now you bastards!"

"Who are you?" I questioned slowly. I noticed that my weapons had disappeared from my belt, and I pawed for them to make sure it wasn't a hallucination trying to divert me. The whole thing felt like a hallucination, but it also felt too real to be.

"What do you mean!?" the young man barked. "I'm Daiba. Did you hit your head or something? Are you even the captain?" The angered glare never eased from his eyes as he looked me over. It seemed like he would punch me at any moment. He was pure rage and irritation.

"I am Captain Harlock," I answered calmly. "But you are not Tadashi Daiba."

"Who the hell do you think I am then?" he snapped. "This isn't even scary. It's just stupid." He returned to yelling at the sky. "Hear that you stupid bastards!? Your trick is fucking awful. Now put me back! I'm not scared of you!"

A bright, amused laugh filled the air. I couldn't guess the age or gender of whoever it came from. I couldn't even guess their location, but they appeared above me, floating in the air as though they were sitting on some invisible ledge. Their appearance was just as impossible to distinguish as their laugh. Clearly, whatever it was wasn't human. Its hair was a shining silver as though it could have been made from the metal. Pupil-less white eyes took us in with a warmth of kindness, along with its sharp-toothed smile. All of its features seemed sharp as well – its nose, brows, and chin. Age was impossible to determine. I could only guess somewhere between thirteen and twenty-five. It was all at once beautiful and disgusting, and I swore it looked slightly different every time I blinked.

"You are fun," it called down to the one calling himself Daiba. "I think I'll like you."

I had thought the thing was the "Noo" the boy had been speaking about, but he looked just as confused as I felt. "The hell are you?" he yelled.

It shook its head, long hair brushing against its shoulders. "Not important. You'd much rather meet the rest of the players, yes?"

With a snap of its thin fingers, over a dozen more people appeared around us. They were all in pairs, with nearly everyone looking just as on-edge as us. Every group was different, but in each one I found a man who could have been my twin. There were eight of us in all, many wearing similar uniforms to my own. A few stood out wildly, and some were taller or shorter. Some had slightly different shades of hair or two eyes instead of one. All but one of us shared the same scar. All but one wore a skull and crossbones. And as it happened, most of us were wearing different pants, and they all had empty holsters where their weapons should have been.

My Daiba was with one wearing black pants and a face void of expression. "Daiba," he called with a voice that sounded different to my ears, but one that I knew was my own. He eyed me with an almost invisible frown as our Daibas hesitantly began walking to trade places.

At the same time, I heard a few other calls for other people. All of them were uncertain.

"Captain?"

"Harlock?"

"Tadashi."

Except the very loud one from one of the young boys. "Harlock!" he screeched. "Who are these people!?"

"I don't know," a younger me in an odd outfit replied shortly. "Quit yelling." There appeared to be three clones in particular that stood out from the other five of us. Two were simply younger and with both their eyes. The one in white pants and a black shirt was paired with the loudmouth boy, who continued to badger him with questions, while the one in a blue one-piece remained absolutely silent alongside an irritable-looking man with a commander's cap who appeared taller than me.

But the strangest one, who all of us had taken to staring at the most, appeared to have been taken straight from the old west. Dual scars ran up from his jaws into his cheeks, unlike the rest of us, and he still had both his eyes. Not only that, but his partner was a short, bespectacled man wearing an oversized cloak. Tochiro. The two were muttering to each other while the cowboy sipped something from a flask. He appeared wholly unimpressed by the matter at hand, unlike the more animated Tochiro.

The groups with men that looked more like me were still strangely varied by their partners, but they all wore black pants. Of course, there was the one who had a very similar but much angrier Daiba, but there was another who had a young man who looked to be in his early twenties at his side. The boy's hair was a fluffy brown, and his jacket was a bright orange. His doppelganger partner was thinner than me, more hints of emotion in his face. He was the only one of us who appeared to have blue eyes instead of brown.

The next one's jaw was squarer, his build holding more muscle, but the boy at his side was the smallest of all. He looked a couple of years younger than Daiba at least, and he stuck close to his partner's side.

The last one of us stuck out easily due to his height, taller than any of us. His uniform was accented by metal pieces of armor, and the young man who must have been his partner stood slightly away from him. Like the younger me in blue and his partner, these two didn't seem as interested in each other as everyone else.

"Captain," Daiba muttered as he reached my side. He looked like he needed to sit down, his eyes wide with confusion. "Are we dead or dreaming?"

I placed a hand to his shoulder to steady him. "Honestly, I don't think we're doing either at the moment." The world around us felt too real to come from a dream. The wind brought my hair to brush against my face, and the dirt shifted beneath the weight of my boots. Death didn't seem like a reasonable option.

"Alright, are you all settled?" the thing still sitting above us called. "Afraid I got you a little mixed up when I pulled you in. You all look so similar, you know. But I'm tired of waiting. I need to get on to explaining the rules of the game."

I was going to speak up against it. I think all of us were, but the first one to speak was the man with the commander's cap. "I'd much prefer if you'd start by introducing yourself." His voice was deep but young, though he looked my age.

The creature's white eyes flashed with a sudden upset, but it quickly returned to its more excited demeanor. "I don't have a name. I never needed one. I am a god, as you would call it. I control the splitting threads caused by the infinite number of choices and decisions made. It took me ages to pick out all of you, so I hope you'll keep me entertained."

"So you're saying we're all from different universes then?" I questioned. "But we're all the same person?"

"Not all of you," it shrugged. "Just the ones that look like it. Except for that one I pulled for the fun of it-" The creature pointed toward the cowboy, "-you're all Phantom F. Harlock. And those three are all Tadashi Daiba in some form." My Daiba along with the one I'd talked to earlier and strangely enough the one in the orange jacket were all pointed at. "I wanted to keep your partners varied, but he's always so different that it fits well. You're all very lucky, you know," it grinned. "Being chosen out of all those infinite possibilities."

"You know we don't exist to be your entertainment," my double with the youngest boy said. "I'm not sure what you have planned, but we'll take no part in it."

We all voiced a chorus of agreement, and the creature's smile cracked like a porcelain mask. "You will," it said, its voice ice. The air grew cold, and the blue sky was overtaken by deeply gray clouds. The flowers under our feet withered until there was nothing but dry, crunching grass. "You will play, or everything you know will be wiped out, so I suggest you listen to the rules if you hope to get out of this with both your lives and the lives of all of those you care about intact."

As it spoke, most of the younger men looked up and listened intently with wide eyes, while the rest of us studied each other. I was curious about them. It seemed only natural to be. I wondered how we were different and the same. I wondered about how their lives had played out to make their expressions darker or lighter than my own. I wondered about the cowboy's Tochiro and if any of the others had one, but I also listened. I didn't like what I heard.

"This game is very simple. Your goal is to be the last one alive – or last ones if you can keep your partner alive as well, though that isn't very important. So the other side of that coin of course, is to kill everyone else. To start out, I will place all sixteen of you across the game board I designed, which consists of four areas. You'll learn about them while you're playing. Across the board are traps and extra weapons you can use, but none of the traps are set. That is for you to do. From the beginning, you will have a weapon of your choice. Your ammo will not run out if you chose a weapon of that nature. If you win and your partner is dead, I will bring them back for you, and you will be returned to your home just as you were." Its smile returned, but the sun did not. "If you both die, then I may still bring one of you back, but you will remain here with me to keep me company for as long as I see fit, and I will destroy your universe for good."

By the end, we'd all turned to stare at it. No one was pleased.

"We won't fight," I said. "We won't give you what you want."

"If you want a proper fight, we'll take you on," the young one in blue said. "But I won't turn on them when we're all fighting for a just cause."

"I don't know what's going on, but I sure don't feel like going up against all these guys," Tochiro squawked. The cowboy remained silent.

"I've been up against gods before," the one with blue eyes smirked. "It looks like you're all selfish cowards then."

I expected more anger from the creature, but it laughed instead, bringing a rolling thunder from the clouds above. "You all have so much faith in yourselves, but how well do you really know each other? How far would you be willing to go to save someone? Now understand that the other you might be thinking the same answer, or he might not. You're all the same person, but you're vastly different, and your partners aren't just here to look cute."

I heard a few cries of offense from the younger ones, including Daiba beside me.

"And you know," it purred, "there's already one among you seeking out your weaknesses and plotting the best ways he could take each of you down. Don't be so trusting. Kill your doubles before they kill you." Its eyes seemed to be focused on each of us and yet nothing all at once. It brought up its hand again.

"This is all going a little fast, don't you think?" the young man next to the tallest one of us said, the first of his pair to speak. "I think we need a little time to think all this over before we get started."

"You've already proven that you won't listen to me, and if you feel like talking, you can do it on the game board," it shrugged. "I don't feel like wasting any more time. Let's get onto the show. Now choose your weapon wisely, boys, and good luck."

With a snap of its fingers, I was alone again, this time in an endless darkness. I could see myself just fine, but there were no lights. My dragoon appeared a few feet in front of me, my saber to my left. A few more guns and swords also showed, larger and smaller. Almost every weapon I could imagine was laid out in front of me, but the most respectable one I felt I could use against my doubles I snatched from the ground before sliding back in its holster. My saber could still kill just as well as any other gun, and I hoped I wouldn't have to use it.

I didn't want to fight any of them. I didn't want to do any of this at all, but I was certain we all felt the same way. What I couldn't be certain was whether or not the others were willing to carry out the game to its conclusion. For me, killing one of them would be a last resort, but I knew Daiba would be more trigger happy.

A world grew around me. First, a blazing blue sky appeared. Then my feet sank into a soft sea of sand that rose and fell in wave after endless wave. I guessed this was my area – a desert. If there were only four, I assumed other people were in the area with me, but I couldn't see any. My best chance was to start walking to get out of the heat.

Feeling a light pressure against my wrist, I raised it to find a leather strap, covered in marble-like half-spheres all the way around. A quick count put the number at sixteen of the gems, and every two had a different shape stamped on it in black. There were circles, stars, squares, and a few others. I had a feeling they represented all of us, but I wasn't sure why.

This so-called god acted more like a child than anything if it thought this was a game. Perhaps it was like chess in a way, but we were all pawns. We were nothing more than sacrifices for the game's end unless we played with a less offensive strategy.

There was no means to count time in this fake world. The sun set and rose faster than it should have, so I could only guess. But it was certainly a good number of hours later that I spotted the line of trees in the distance. It looked like heaven to me, after all the sweat that had collected over my entire body from the blistering heat of the desert. Then I heard a crack, followed by the clear sound of one of the gems shattering. I held up my wrist to see one of the spheres – one with a circle stamp – had become nothing but shards lying on the sand.

My stomach sank as I understood the meaning of the bracelet, and the meaning of the sudden loss it was showing me.

* * *

And they're off. Don't be too concerned with nameless god OC thing. They won't get much screen time. It's more fun just to write all the boys suffering. (Real sorry for the severe lack of girls.)


	2. Fire and Ice

**It's about time I finished this chapter. Things are still kind of slow to start out, but hopefully my pacing will pick up like I'm planning for it to. I never know with me. **

**Thanks so much for all your reviews all the last chapter! As for listing off all the characters and series (sorry they weren't all clear), you've got the Tadashi and Captain pair from SPCH, Endless Odyssey, Harlock Saga, and SSX. Harlock from Space Symphony Maetel has Nazca, and new movie Captain has Yama. Of course I had to have Harlock and Zero from Cosmo Warrior Zero stuck together. Harlock and Tochiro from Gun Frontier are there as a fun bonus.**

**Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope everything is okay.**

* * *

My best guess was that I'd somehow eaten some sort of weird plant and was now hallucinating the strangest nonsense my mind could manage. There was no chance this mess was real. All those weird alternate versions of me had looked so unfazed by the whole thing, while I was stuck looking like the butt of a joke, because I clearly didn't fit in. I'd managed to keep a straight face through the entire meeting, but I was completely lost and confused by everything. This whole fighting to the death thing couldn't have been real. There was no way, and I was obviously hallucinating.

All those men who looked like me - Phantom that monster had called them. Most of them had kids at their sides, and I would not stoop to the level of killing a child. That was why it couldn't be real. I would wake up, and we'd be back on the wagon with Tochiro snoring up a storm and that no-good woman off doing something to get us in trouble.

I only wished it didn't feel so real.

The odd studded strap around my wrist felt so heavy that I swore I was leaning slightly to one side. It didn't make sense for something so small, but not matter how hard I'd torn at it with my teeth, the thing wouldn't come off.

Around me, the air swirled and bit at my exposed skin, a thick layer of snow crunching beneath my boots with each step. Damn, I hated the cold. I had to hold my hand against the top of my hat to keep it from blowing away as I trudged on. My entire outfit quickly soaked through with melted frost, and my leather gloves resisted each tug of movement as my fingers ached from the cold. At the rate things were going, I swore the environment would kill me before a person did.

The flurries of snow ensured my field of vision was nothing but white. All I could do was keep going forward blindly in hopes that I could find a shelter of some sort. That monster had said something about different areas. I hoped that meant different climates, since the snow eventually did let up to drift lightly enough that I could follow the path of a flake with my eyes. But it didn't feel any warmer. I could only grit my teeth and keep heading forward.

The only upside to the blanket of white was how any other color stood out so easily. Then again, if there was one color that was going to stand out anywhere, it was that orange that my eyes immediately darted to once I'd reached the top of yet another hill that had felt like a mountain.

It was one of the kids, the one with the orange jacket and blue jeans. He was a few dozen paces to my left, his hands jammed into pockets in the coat as he forced himself on through the snow that consumed his entire foot with each step.

I wasn't going to shoot him, even if the thought did cross my mind. If I was a heartless bastard I might have, though my gun had a chance of jamming from the cold. He was headed the same direction as me, and I could only wonder if he would shoot at me the moment he noticed I was there. If not, he would at least make for some company while we looked for somewhere to bunker down.

I figured it was worth a shot. I'd spent my whole time going forward, and I sure didn't feel like changing directions then. Besides, I had the higher ground. "Hey!" I yelled, trying to keep my voice from being carried away in the wind.

You would have thought I'd shot at him as he spun on a dime, his hand immediately on his gun. The only thing that kept him from drawing was when I raised my hands up to prove I had nothing in them. Even so, I could have easily snatched my gun from its holster and shot him a few times before he could even draw. His movements were just that untrained and sluggish.

For a breath of time, we stared at each other, waiting for an offensive move to send us into a firefight. The hollow wind whipped at his overgrown brunet hair so that it brushed every inch of his paled skin. He was Japanese, like Tochiro and quite a few of the other young companions had been. It almost seemed wrong to kill him simply for that reason. "Yeah?" he yelled back, his hand still resting on his gun.

"Just wanted to let you know I was here. Not gonna shoot you or nothing."

He squinted at my words, looking at me like he thought I was as stupid as I was suspicious. "Well, I won't shoot you if you don't shoot me," he answered at length. He was smart to not trust me, but it was impeding progress.

"Would you mind if I walked with you?" He started to cut me off with an uneasy refusal, but I continued over him. "If I walk ahead, I won't be able to see you, and if I walk behind, you won't be able to see me."

He bit his tongue, his hardened expression giving way to his exhaustion and uncertainty. "You swear you won't try to hurt me?"

"I swear on my life," I said, taking off my hat to place over my heart. His hand left his gun as he nodded in a slow acceptance, and I slipped my way down the icy slope toward him. When I was right in front of him, it was even easier to see how tired he was, and it was no wonder - he was short. He must have been at least a head shorter than me, so trudging through the snow was probably even more of a challenge. It was a good thing he had that jacket closed up around him, because his frame was so thin. Oddly, he looked up to me with a slight smile.

"That thing said you were different from the captain, but you still look a lot like him. Funny to see his face with both eyes though." His voice was small, young, but now that I was closer, I wondered if he was older than I'd first guessed. "Well, I was just trying to make it to the next area - get out of this damn cold."

I nodded. "You really think the landscape will change so quickly?"

"It's worth a try, and I've seen stranger things," he laughed softly. "Like you, cowboy."

I stayed directly at his side as he turned to continue walking. I didn't need to freak him out by getting behind him in any way. "My name is Harlock," I corrected. "I'm no cowboy."

"Sure-sure," he snorted. "My name's Tadashi Daiba."

"So you are Japanese then?"

He glanced up at me with a curious frown. "I am, but not really full blood. What's it to you?"

"Nothing really." I scratched at the back of my neck, my eyes forward as I searched for some color other than white or the brown of his untrusting eyes. "I just don't really see many of you other than Tochiro."

He hummed in thought, his hands jammed in his pockets and his brows knit as I looked back to him. The pace of his feet dragging through the snow forced me to slow to keep from getting ahead of him, but he was clearly doing his best to not trip up. Still, I had to grab his arm to keep him from falling on his face. He muttered a quick thanks before pretending it hadn't happened. "So your friend was Tochiro then?" he asked. "My captain has one too – a Tochiro friend. That is weird to say."

It was weird. It was so weird I could only give up with trying to understand it all. "So he's in all these different lives too?" I reasoned. "There's a me in every one, and there's a Tochiro, so maybe there's a you back in my home too."

"Maybe."

Maybe he'd been at Samurai Creek, and maybe he was still out there – one of the people Tochiro was looking for.

Or maybe he wasn't, and how would it even matter? If the game was real and Tochiro and I did get out by some miracle, this kid had to die. And if he died in the game, it seemed like he had to be dead in our world too. I couldn't be sure that was true, but it just felt that way.

Lost in my thoughts, I had dragged us into silence. He'd begun to stare at the gray sky, breathing slowly to watch every puff of his warmth leaving him. When I looked closer, it was clear that he was shivering, but I had nothing I could give him to help combat it, and I was in the same boat.

"What's it like in your world?" he asked suddenly. "Is it really like those weird old movies about the west?"

"Is it what?" I blinked. "I sure don't know, but it's not like this. Mostly hot and dry, and people generally aren't as respectful as you. More of a shoot first type of place. There's never enough to eat or drink, and all the women are more pain than they're worth."

He laughed softly from his chest. "But does everyone ride horses? Showdowns at noon and all that?"

"Uh, well people ride trains and in carriages or wagons too. What's your world like?"

"It's kind of like this one. The things calling themselves gods have decided we're not important. But the captain and everyone else on the Arcadia are going to fix it, so there's nothing to worry about." He smiled at the sky, but fear was swimming in his eyes.

"We're going to get out of here, Tadashi," I said. "We're all going to meet up and work this out, and we'll all get out."

It took him a moment, but he nodded. "You sound like my captain too – always so sure of himself."

Honestly, I wasn't sure of anything, but it sounded nice to say aloud. "And then we can all go for drinks," I grinned.

He probably rolled his eyes, but I was too busy squinting ahead of us to look at his reaction. Maybe I'd really lost it this time, but I swore the white vanished after a certain point. It even looked like it gave way to green, and that must have been the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen.

"Look!" I yelled, running a few paces ahead to try and see better. "I think we made it!"

Hope and relief flooded his exhausted voice. "Really?"

I couldn't help but continue on in a rush forward, just a few more paces ahead. He would catch up. And there it was, whatever weird divide there was between these regions. We had finally found it. We were finally done freezing our asses off.

"God, look out there." I pointed to it like some sort of excited little kid. "Green. How does it get green so fast? You can see that too, right? I'm not just going crazy?"

When I turned around, he was face down in the snow. The wind whipped at his hair, but no part of him moved otherwise. My head swarmed with attempts at an explanation as I raced back, my lungs acing against the icy air. He was tired, so tired that he couldn't make it the rest of the way, or he'd gotten sick somehow. There was some simple cause with a simple solution, and he would be fine.

Because if one of us died, then the game was real.

If one of us died, we all would.

I dropped to my knees beside him, the snow quickly sinking through my pants as I rolled him over toward me. His eyes had been closed, but they opened to reveal that same fear. This time it wasn't hidden by a smile. He was just scared.

With my hand on one shoulder I could feel how horrible his shiver had become, tearing through his entire body despite the sweat on his color-drained face. It looked like he was trying to catch his breath with each pained, whistling wheeze that made his body only shake more. The cold air was probably so thin that it was hard to get enough. He needed to be in the green.

"I'm going to carry you, alright." I decided. He wasn't getting a choice on the matter.

I yanked him by the shoulder to sit him up straight, but I nearly dropped him back at the sudden agonized scream that left him. His eye went wide from pain before shutting tight against it as I held him stable there. I was about to demand to know what was wrong when I noticed his hand clutching at his side.

With a hard tug, I pulled his shirt and jacket up enough to see under them despite his weak cry of protest. It was easy to fight off his hand, trying to keep me from seeing.

I wasn't sure what it was exactly that had eaten through his side. It looked like a concentrated stream of fire had just been shot into him, and the hole was blackened and charred along with lighter burns on the skin around it. Despite the cauterization, blood was seeping through and coating his side in an ugly smear. It had seeped into his shirt, but not his jacket.

He must have had it the whole time.

Which meant I couldn't waste any more time. I scooped him up in my arms, though I would have preferred carrying him on my back. Again, he voiced his pain, but this time only with a whimper.

"Why did you hide that?" I demanded as I set off in as much of a sprint as I could manage.

"Thought you'd pick me off if you saw," he panted, his voice small and raw with pain.

"I wouldn't have hurt you, dammit! How did you even get that? Did you have it when you came here?"

"No-no. It was the first of us- first one I saw." I found his hand balled into a fist in my shirt, his face twisted in pain as I jolted him with every step.

"Goddammit!" So we weren't all reasonable. We weren't all respectful enough to try and sort it out instead of immediately fighting.

Then I had no choice. If I wanted to live, I was going to have to kill someone. At least one. Maybe more. Maybe one of the kids.

I wasn't sure if I had that in me.

"Hang on." It seemed like all I could say as I continued to run. It was all I had the breath to say. "Hang on. Hang on, Tadashi."

When I crossed over into the grass, the world was suddenly warm. There was a blazing sun in the blue sky that hadn't been there before, and trees were lined up in front of us like an army. The warmth seemed to immediately set to work melting my frozen skin, and I dropped to my knees there with a wall of ice and snow at my back, just trying to catch my breath.

"Harlock," Tadashi whispered. I found his eyes halfway open but filled with tears. "That thing, it said- It said it could bring us back, right?"

It felt like all the blood drained from my body, disappearing from my limbs and hollowing my chest and gut. He sounded so scared.

But I couldn't think of what to say. "I don't… It said that, but you'll be alright. Once we get farther in…" Then what? I could tear my jacket into bandages and try to stop the bleeding, but there was nothing I could do for that wound. What kind of sick weapon had made a wound that couldn't be stitched up or treated?

Still, I forced myself to my feet, and I continued carrying him toward the trees. I felt like I could save him if I could just get him farther into this forest. There would be some miracle to save him. Why I needed to save him, I wasn't completely sure. I didn't know anything about him other than his name, but it seemed like he knew so much about me, because I existed in his world. Maybe he just couldn't exist in mine.

"We'll find your captain," I said, trying to find something to be sure of. "He'll be able to fix this, and you'll be alright."

"You have to tell him. Tell him we have to get the ring," he begged, his quieted voice chopped up by each staggered breath pushing through his lungs. "We have to. I have to fix my mistake. We can't…can't lose the world to gods."

The thought kept kitting me like a hard punch to the gut. He wasn't going to make it. He was going to die here. All I was carrying him to was the end.

I felt myself speaking, but I couldn't control the escaping words. "I'll make sure that thing brings you back. You're not dying. You'll just be asleep, and then we'll get you right back." It was all nothing but cheap lies.

"I don't want to go," he breathed as tears rolled down his face. I pulled his limp form up closer to lean his cheek against my shoulder, because there was no other comfort I could offer. I suddenly remembered that I didn't know his age. I almost asked.

I almost asked him a dozen questions about himself or his world, but I didn't open my mouth. I just listened to the rattle of his breath as he fought to say something. Only when I leaned my ear closer did I catch the fragment of a whispered message.

"Don't trust..."

He didn't make it to the tree line. His eyes were still partially open, but he was no longer seeing. I laid him down at the base of the closest tree, wiping the tears from his face before I closed his eyes for him.

For the first time, I felt like one of the other men would show up behind me just to shoot me in the back. This entire game was a death trap, and I wanted no part in dying. I couldn't die, because I had to find that god. I had to get this boy back. No matter what it took or who I had to kill, this boy had to live, because I had told him as much.

"Sorry, but I'm going to have to borrow this," I said as I unhooked his gun holster to fashion it around my waist beside my own. His gun was strange, with no clear place to put ammunition, and I could only assume it was like the ones all of my enemies had. It would be my last resort for if my own gun failed me.

I didn't feel safe staying in one place any longer, so I offered him a quiet goodbye before I stood and continued on into the forest. The strap around my wrist was feeling lighter, but still heavy. One marble had broken at some point. I hadn't noticed when, and really, it didn't matter. There were still fifteen left.

* * *

**I managed to ruin cute, peppy Franklin in one chapter. I am the worst. Well, I also ruined Saga Daiba, but that's not as important.**


	3. A Late Walk

**This chapter isn't much fun, but it's just a little safe transition chapter before I get back into the grosser aspects. It also answers the important question of what it would be like if you gathered some Harlocks together. The answer is they're all not very exciting together, and there's a reason they need their cute friends around to keep everything from being all stoic all the time.**

**But I hope you like it okay! Sorry for any mistakes!**

* * *

The forest seemed to be a square. Maybe it wasn't an exact square, but the sides appeared about even – maybe a half-dozen miles across, give or take. If I pretended the Sun was acting like the Earth's, though faster, then to the north and south was a desert, and to the east and west was snowy tundra. I had a felling these were just the same areas on a loop, considering every corner of the square met together with three other squares: the tundra, the desert, and a what appeared to be jungle diagonally across. That was all my endless hours of searching had found me. No people or objects or exits – just the map I had eventually sketched into the dirt at my feet. A map that looped forever.

Now I was at a standstill, because it felt like my best option was to wait. The lake in the center of the forest held pristine, perfect water, reflecting the crescent moon now hanging in the sky. It was an ideal place to draw in others. That way we could discuss a plan, and no one… Well, no one _else_ would have to die, if that was really what the wristband was indicating

I sat on a smoothed gray rock near the water's edge, watching it lazily lap at the dirt and wondering if someone might try to sneak up on me and shoot me while I was so clearly out in the open. They probably wouldn't be able to with all the twigs and dead leaves scattering the forest floor, but they could always try.

Holding my wrist up to the moonlight, I twisted it and watched the transparent gems sparkle in a rainbow of hidden colors. Selfishly, I hoped the circle-stamped gems didn't represent us. Tadashi was small. He could fight and hold his own, but he was young and I could only guess the amount of training all the older boys had. And if he ran into a version of me that was selfish enough to hurt him… It took a great deal of work not to think on the idea, as my mind continuously fell back to it.

My head snapped to the side just as a rustling began in the brush nearby. At least I was finally getting to see someone. Logically, I thought we all would have filtered into the forest as the most comfortable region, which was probably what that creature had been planning. But the only sign of any person I'd seen were small footprints in the soft ground of the lake shore. Not Tadashi's, but definitely one of the boys'. They'd disappeared after I'd followed them for a time, so I couldn't be too sure.

Whoever this was, he wasn't trying to hide his approach. His footsteps crashed through the browned leaves, and I wasn't surprised to see a familiar skull and crossbones on his chest, shining in the moonlight as he came into view. It was one of my doubles, the one with the gray pants. Honestly, there wasn't any other way to tell us apart. When he saw me, he paused a moment, probably waiting to see if I was going to shoot, since I was sitting there wondering the same thing.

But he didn't, and neither did I, so he continued toward me. His expression was difficult to see in the deep blue hues of moonlit night, but when he was close enough, I found him with a calm, unreadable expression that I imagined matched my own. "Have you been here the whole time?" he asked as he neared. "Or were you in a different area?"

"I started here, but I looked around the whole thing."

"I was in the desert. Didn't bother looking around more than I had to, but there wasn't much to see." There was a touch of irritation to his voice, and I couldn't help but smile as he tossed his cape over near me, yanked off his boots, rolled up his pant legs and waded into the water. His gloves came off too with quick tugs, thrown to land on top of his cape. "Run into anyone else?"

"No, but I was hoping they'd all come here."

He nodded, staring down into the water as though he could pull answers from it. "Makes sense. So you don't know who died then?"

"No." He must have reasoned that out from the band too. Either that or he'd been the one to kill them, but I doubted that.

Again, he nodded. "I'm not sure if I want to know, but I would like to know who killed them." He turned to look back at me, his brow furrowed. "I trust my crewman to know when it is and isn't okay to kill, but a situation like this is different."

"Very different," I sighed. "I don't know that Tadashi would ever shoot anyone here unless they attack first, but that does make him an easy target." The way we talked about everything felt almost like any ordinary conversation. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't think of how else to speak with him. It was strange enough to be speaking with him at all. My mind wandered to the idea that his crewman could have been the killer, and mine could have been the victim.

What then? I would feel angry, of course, but taking revenge by killing his crewman might in-turn lead him to fight me. And that was just what the monster wanted. It wanted a bloodbath fueled by fear and hatred and revenge.

"So you have a Daiba as well?" he asked, still just a simple conversation despite the absolute madness surrounding us.

"No, it's Tadashi Monono – the little brunet."

I found a moment's sympathy in his eye, and I was certain it was because Tadashi was the absolute youngest among us. "How can I say I hope they're both alright?" he murmured. "Because that would mean hoping someone else is dead."

The polite conversation fell away as I nodded. "I think we should just gather everyone and work out a solution. Banding together will ruin the whole game. It's our only chance as far as I can see, but we have to make sure everyone keeps a cool head, no matter what happened in the past."

"No matter what it takes, I will not kill anyone else," he said mostly to himself, his eye locked into the trees.

I followed his gaze. "I promise the same," I responded, though he may not have been listening as both our attentions were turned to a much louder, more hurried crashing nearing us.

I hoped to see one of the younger boys, and in a way, I got what I hoped for. "Oh, hey!" he greeted with a slight wave as he hit the edge of the tree line. It was the young version of us with the flashy white pants and odd black shirt. His eyes were bright with interest, though his face didn't show it otherwise. "What's going on?"

"We were just discussing a plan to bring everyone together," I called while he struggled to free his foot from where it had tangled in some roots. "Have you seen anyone?"

Even though he was yards away, it was easy to see his face screw up against the question. Once his foot was loose, he continued toward us, his pace slowed "I saw another one of us, but he was in a pretty piss-poor mood, so I just got away from him pretty quick. Thought he was gonna shoot me."

"Which one of us?" the man next to me asked. Looking between them, I realized we would need some sort of name system to tell each other apart.

"I'm not sure. One that looked like you two. He started yelling at me as soon as he saw me, asking if I killed whoever had died. Maybe you can try to approach him later, but he seemed a little crazy."

Well that was discouraging, but surely we could reason with him. I thought for a moment, wondering if they would mind taking orders from me. "Alright, we'll wait on asking him, but we need to spread out and look for anyone else who might come through here. The lake can be our base. I think there might also be some people in the jungle area, but I doubt anyone will stay-"

There was that split second where we all felt confused. The sound was so foreign in the middle of a calm, natural setting. But I watched the younger one of us cringe, not wanting to look down. I looked to the other me to see him holding up the bracelet as though he was checking the time on a watch. His eye was heavy with disappointment. It felt like we were at a standstill, and that silvery sound of the gem shattering still rang in my ears.

"Which shape?" I felt myself ask, as if it would make some difference.

"Star," he said. I could only guess at who that was. The dread in my stomach assured me it had to be Tadashi, because I couldn't help but think the worst.

When the younger one of us spoke, his throat sounded dry. "You two haven't seen a scrawny kid, have you? He's real loud, so it's hard to miss him." He was trying to smile, but it wasn't working.

"No, I'm sorry." I really was. I understood. "You're the first one we've seen,"

When that thing brought us along with a partner, it really had known what it was doing. If it had just been the eight of us, I wasn't sure there would have been much bloodshed, if any at all. But the boys we'd drug along were impulsive, and I wasn't even sure what to think of the older ones. My Tochiro wouldn't have harmed any of them, but I couldn't be sure about the one with the cowboy. I didn't know anything about the other two, who weren't even remotely recognizable. The one that worried me the most was the lone man whose insignia was not a skull and crossbones.

"I like to think that whoever is doing this is doing it out of fear," the elder double said. "So when we're all together, we may be able to calm them down."

I'd been hoping the same thing, but there was no guarantee. "That idea fits if it's one of the boys. If it's one of us, I doubt that's the case. We can't even be sure these acts weren't done by two completely different people. It could even be a pair that has decided to try to win."

The young one's slow pace had finally reached my side, and he plopped down next to me on the rock, frowning out across the lake. "But we have to keep at it. We have to try uniting everyone. If we're not fighting, that thing doesn't have the show it wants, and we may be able to draw it out and talk to it again."

"At the very least, we have to try," I nodded in agreement.

"You're right. Let's set up base here." The elder said as he leaned down to clean his hands in the water. The reflected moon wobbled from the sudden waves "We can search here and the jungle for three passes of the Sun, since I'd estimate that's around five hours. After that time is up, we'll return here with everyone we've found and check everyone over." He straightened his back, his expression calm, though his eye was dark. "I have a talent for catching liars, so we'll just see if we can find out who is responsible so we can keep an eye on them."

I pulled off my cape and dropped it on top of his as I stood. It would only get in the way in the tree-dense areas. "Sounds fair. We can keep doing cycles with that plan until we have everyone. And just so I don't get confused, we should probably all go by different names other than Harlock for when we're all in a group."

"As long as we don't have to go by embarrassing nicknames," the youngest grumbled.

"What if he's A," I pointed toward the man in the lake, "I'm B," I cocked a thumb at myself, "and you're C." I pointed at the last of us, who didn't appear thrilled with his rank.

"I guess it'll work," he shrugged. "But what happens if one of them attacks us?"

"Do your best to knock them out," A said. "Killing is your absolute last resort. If you have to shoot, go for the legs."

"There's a chance some of them may not trust us," I realized. "I can't help much with anyone else, but if you run into my cook – the short brunet in green – tell him I sent you, and we still need to get to Arcadia." Admittedly, the code sounded a bit silly, but I had to trust that these men would keep him safe, and so would he.

With a slight smile, A picked up on my plan. "And if you see mine – the blond – tell him he still has more Mazone to go after."

"You can just tell mine to shut up and listen," C said, smirking. "He'll probably manage to call everyone else to you with how loud he always is."

"The time will begin once the sun rises," A said. "I'll look in this area since I just got here if you two want to take the jungle."

I nodded. I'd spent far too much time here already, but it hadn't been a waste. As long as we had a goal we could work toward together, we had a chance to overcome this. The alternate versions of me were all good men so far, so there was still hope for us to win and maybe even bring back the ones we'd lost.

I'd worked too damn hard on protecting my home and friends to let anything else take them from me.

* * *

**The A, B, C part is so funny to me for no reason. Maybe it's because I'm so tired.**

**Harlocks making a strategy together is fun, I have to say.**


End file.
